Anne of Denmark

Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), queen of James VI and I. Anne was daughter of Frederick II of Denmark and Norway. The marriage to James VI on 23 November 1589 was followed by her coronation in May 1590. She was later suspected of favouring catholicism since she refused the sacrament at her coronation in England in July 1603. Her eldest son Henry Frederick, later prince of Wales, died in 1612, leaving his brother Charles (b. 1600) heir to the throne. Anne was interested in the arts, patronizing both Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. An amiable woman, who enjoyed masques and dancing, her husband James, with a taste for theological disputation, found her frivolous. She suffered from gout and dropsy for many years, though her death in 1619 was sudden. She died intestate, leaving heavy debts.

Sue Minna Cannon

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Anne of Denmark

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Anne of Denmark, 1574–1619, queen consort of James I of England (James VI of Scotland), daughter of Frederick II of Denmark and Norway. She married James in 1589. Brought up a Lutheran, she became a Roman Catholic some time in the 1590s and at James's English coronation (1603) refused to take Anglican communion. James appeared devoted to her at first, but her extravagance and shallowness came to annoy him, and her Catholicism was an embarrassment to him in England. They lived apart after c.1606.

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